She’s a Mil

I thought by the time I got to this post many others would have already written about the TEAR conference but it seems that no. So that’s good I will be being original. Although it also means that I can not just refer to other blogs for more info.

I enjoyed the conference very much. In my role as nominator I have been hearing sermons from different ministers around the place and some (one in particular) have been absoloutely appaling so I was feeling somewhat starved of inspiration. There was plenty at TEAR though. It was really good to connect with all the people who remind me that there is hope for a better world. People who show me (by the lives they live) that God is in the world and that he does hear the cries of the poor and will answer them.

The front page of the SMH today had two stories, The first one began like this, “The chief executive of Macquarie Group, Allan Moss, will leave the “millionaires factory” with a fortune worth more than $80 million, setting new standards in a debate about how much executive pay is too much”. It goes on to tell us that, “It also equates to Mr Moore earning $3053 an hour, awake or asleep, all year.”

The second was about Burma, however the first line was slightly different to the one above, “Don’t worry about the dead bodies; the fish will eat them.” The story went on to describe the situation there, “People were begging on their hands and knees for a single packet of soup,” a team member said. “Please don’t leave us,” cried a hungry young mother nursing her child. She had lost her husband, mother and three other family members.

How has the world come to this? While I don’t think any of us have not thought about these issues before I couldn’t believe that it was there on display in such an obvious way. I suppose, if it gets people thinking it is a good thing but I am concerned it won’t. This is so common place, so normal now. It stunned me though and left me feeling pretty empty.

However thanks goes out to David. I came back to blog this and discovered his post. A speech by Martin Luther King which everyone must read. The paragraph that I most needed was this,

“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.”

I really dislike moving. It totally is one of the most stressful, chaotic, unpleasant not too mention dusty experiences. So as you can imagine I am not really looking forward to this weekend and the process of doing just that. And I am especially not looking forward to the fact that I have to do it all again the weekend after that, as we will be living out of boxes at Ryan and Matt’s house for a week before our new place become available.

However last night at my small group we were talking about peace. Mostly about world peace and peace from conflict but we also got on to the topic of inner peace. We were talking about people we know who can be in the midst of total chaos and confusion but still somehow hold on to peace. I am aiming to be like that. Just to try and accept that life will be a little chaotic for a week or so but that’s okay.

I have also been thinking a lot about what they call “stop gap housing”. They talk about this all the time here at Vinnies and it refers to people in a state of secondary homelessness, those staying with relatives and friends as they have nowhere else to go. People who permantly live out of boxes in this state of chaos. They estimate that there are 50 000 people living like this in Australia and I guess I will be one of them for a week and I am very grateful that it is just a week and then I will have my own home. That’s what I will be concentrating on.

Not a very original title but appropriate for the day. So it’s finally happened. Today the PM of Australia said sorry to the Stolen Generation. It was a moving moment. I have to confess I did cry. When I woke up this morning and looked out the window at the pouring rain and I very nearly stayed in bed but then I had sense that today history was to be made and I wanted to be there. So I got up and went to Martin Place and stood there in the rain with Carlyn and an old friend from Rough Edges who is indigenous and watch after many years of wishing for this moment Kevin Rudd say the word sorry.

I’m excited! Not because (as many have stated) an apology in itself can bring about reconciliation or close the enormous gaps between indigenous and non indigenous people but because without it, we can not even really start. I also thought it was a good apology from Kevin Rudd, respectful and honest. I heard that he spent hours with members of the Stolen Generation just listening to their stories and it showed. I like the fact that we have a PM who listens. It was a shame that this was not mirrored by Brendan Nelson whose speech was completely disrespectful, inappropriate and plain down right rude. However I am not going to let that ruin the moment. I would like to think in 100 years people will remember today. That they will remember the thousands, perhaps millions who gathered around in public and private places to apologise for the horrendous way that we, as a nation, have treated our indigenous people. And they will remember Kevin Rudd’s words and not those of the opposition leader. So I with the PM and others say sorry again to the aboriginal people of Australia and let’s hope that this will be the beginning of some big changes.

The last couple of days have been pretty full farewelling Jo. On Saturday Jo had her farewell party. I couldn’t make it as I had to work. This was very disappointing for me but I did get to go to Coogee beach with her in the evening. This is a bit of a tradition for Jo and I who have on a few occasions, when one of us had to work/study on a Saturday, gone there for a swim. It was my first beach swim of the season and it was beautiful. Matt, Louisa, Martin, Ryan, Tom and Jessica also joined us so that was fun too and we had a BBQ.

On Sunday I went to Jo’s church to pray with the community there for her and on Monday we had our last house dinner. We went to China town for noodles and beer. Tuesday was Jo’s last day so we had out last swim and pancakes and went to the car wash to wash our cars. Another tradition. The day before Jem left we did this and the day Jon left Tom got his car washed too. In the evening we went to communuity dinner and we prayed again for Jo and then finally yesterday we dropped at the airport.

It has been a pretty sad time for me. I am going to miss Jo a lot. Her constant and gentle presence in our home, her ability to listen and reflect compassionately, her committment to people, her energy and her sense of fun. I am going to miss talking to her, praying with her, eating with her and watching seachange with her.

On the other hand, I know this is something she has wanted to do for a long time and so I am excited about what she is doing. Well, like Tom said, I am excited about what God is doing through her and that even though it is a long way away we will all be able to support her different ways.

I am inspired by the fact that I am surrounded by people, my friends and family, who do not aspire to live easy, comfortable, risk free lives. I am inspired by the fact they are people who do not seek money, privelege or power. Instead they seek to live serving others and God in the pursuit of justice. For many that will be here in Sydney but for others it will be in other states or countries and so while this means that we as a community will often be farewelling someone I am grateful as it inspires me too. And I am excited about the adventures God will lead people on and I hope that we continue to do this together no matter where we are.

Last weekend I went to the “Liberating the Captives” conference.  I have been thinking about some of the stuff that was talked about there a lot this week.  I think I have been feeling quite ambivalent about leaving Australia lately,  I am very happy and comfortable here and I won’t deny I am very keen to have some children but it reminded me that it is the thing that I most want and feel quite called to.  The main speaker was quite involved with some organisations in Peru.  I got his contact details as I would very much like to see what other people are doing in Peru.  Hopefully there will be time when I am there in June. 

Dave Andrews, as always, left me with some stuff to think about.  I will try to reframe from raving about it too much but he told us a version of the serenity prayer which has been going around my head since.  It goes like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I can not change, Courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.

I scored four out of seven on the “this is your lifestyle” test which tests my impact on the environment. This means I suck a bit. I guess it could be worse but it certainly could be better.

Global warming makes me feel so anxious. Someone quoted David Suzuki to me the other day who says that we are in a bus hurling towards a brick wall at two hundred kilomertres an hour but no one is doing anything about it. I want to do something about it and I am having shorter showers, turning off lights, mostly buying second hand clothes and I am a vegetarian so that gets me points but it all feels so futile.

I think I may make my new years resolution to get up earlier so that I can catch the train to work when I don’t need to use during work hours. And maybe my next letter to the politicians should be about global warming. I guess that is related to global poverty becasue as with everything it will be the poor who will be most disadvataged by global warming. I think I should stop saying will and say are. Global warming is definitely present and not future.

I need people to keep me accountable to that.

They are doing renovations at work so that has meant for me lots of noise with concrete cutters and hammers and other renovation tools that make lots of noise. It is a little anoying but it will be good once it is done. It also means that we don’t have a kitchen right now so the table and fridge and watever else have all been set up in the space right outside my office.

This has been good in that I have gotton to know some of the really lovely and kind people who give up their time to work in the shops but unfortunatlely today it has proved to be quite distressing. It seems that a small group of our volunteers are complete racists. Today I heard about the “stupid people who don’t speak English” and “the mean, nasty muslims who are the cause of the world’s problems” not to mention “the dole bludgers who take advantage of the society” and questions about how we are going to ensure that poeple don’t get more than one hamper. It made me so angy. I just can’t believe that attitude and especially not here where the motto we follow is “be kind and love for love is your first gift to the poor”. Here where we are told “do not blame the poor”. And here where it is Jesus Christ that we follow.

Of course by the time I had formulated a response in my head and had calmed myself down enough not to be nasty as well the conversation had finished and I had lost my opportunity to say something. Not that I would probably have the guts to anyway but these kind of attitudes upset me so and I feel I must say say something beacuse it is probably not nastiness that leads to these kind of attitudes but ignorance.

I went and saw Ngapartji Ngaparji tonight. This is what they call a theatre experience where you go along and learn some Pitjantjatjara (Aboriginal language of Northern Territory) and sing some songs and then listen to a story about one of the actors families acted out. Learning the language was fun. They taught us words about family my mum is my ngunytju and my dad is my mama and Gemma is my kangkuru. Martin is wiru (beautiful). I know that’s not family but I liked the word and I wanted to talk about Martin. They also taught us about how family works and who marries who. There are lots of laws that I don’t fully understand so Iwon’t go into it but it was interestinh. The story like many was very sad. It made me really angry.

I am glad I wnet and saw this today as in class today my lecturer told us that the uni now had a relationship with someone who teaches language in the Northern Territory and they want people to do their practicums there. I was thinking that I would like to do this and tonight made me quite excited about the idea. A bit scared as the whole thing is so complex and I worry that I really have no idea what I can/should do but I think that I should at leat try.

Hopefully I can go again tommorrrow.

Today I wrote a letter to Peter Costello asking him in his role as chair of the G20 meeting of Finance Ministers to put the reduction of poverty on the agenda. Then I looked up the addresses of my local MP, John Howard and Phillip Ruddock and over the next couple of weeks I am going to write them all letters. After that I think I will get some more MP’s adresses like Amanda Vanstone, Kim Beazley and Alexander Downer so that I can write them letters too……..

I have been meaning to do this for so long but for some reason I never got around to it. I don’t know why maybe I thought that it would be too hard to find their addresses or something but it was really, really easy. Maybe I thought that it was a waste of time but somebody told me recently that they had been speaking to MP’s who said that if people keep writing they can not ignore it forever. It feels good to have finally done it.